When transporting chip-type electronic parts such as IC's, it is common to use carrier tapes having recesses consecutively formed at standard intervals by embossing a plastic sheet. Chip-type electronic parts are placed in the recesses, and the top surface of the carrier tape is heat-sealed by the cover tape so as to seal the electronic parts inside.
Cover tape is obtained by cutting narrow tapes of film from a wide original sheet, and sold in a state of being rolled in the shape of a record onto a core of about the same width as the cutting width, or in a state of traverse rolling onto a core that is wider than the cutting width. In particular, for the sake of transportation efficiency, it is common to package a plurality of record rolls which have been stacked to form a cylinder.
One example of a conventional method of packaging record rolls of cover tape will be explained with reference to FIG. 2.
In the method shown in FIG. 2, record rolls 3 obtained by winding a cover tape 1 onto a core 2 in the form of a record (FIG. 2a) are stacked roughly coaxially to form a cylindrical stack 4 (FIG. 2b), the stack 4 is wrapped in a packaging film 10 along its outer circumference (FIG. 2c), the packaging film 10 is anchored with adhesive tape 11 (FIG. 2d), and the excess at both ends of the packaging film 10 is folded inward and fixed with adhesive tape 11 (FIGS. 2e and 2f). Next, the resulting package is placed in a packaging bag 12 (FIG. 2g), the packaging bag 12 is deaerated by a deaeration device 13 (FIG. 2h), and the mouth portion (heat-sealed portion 14) is heat-sealed while maintaining the deaerated state, to finally obtain the package 15 (FIG. 2i).
The package 15 is normally further packaged in a cardboard box or the like for transport.
Additionally, as a method of preventing slackening of film tape rolled in the form of a record, a method of placing a record roll of tape into a bag and sealing the bag under reduced pressure has been proposed (Patent Document 1). With this packaging method, the reduced pressure seal enables the bag to snugly contact the entirety of the record roll tape due to the pressure difference inside and outside the bag, thereby securing the record roll tape while at the same time making the package itself highly rigid, as a result of which slackening is prevented. It further describes that the material of the bags can have a heat-shrink property, in which case the loose ends (excess) of the bag jutting from the external diameter of the tape after reduced pressure sealing can be removed, thereby enabling the package volume to be reduced.
Patent Document 1: JP-A 2005-186959